Saturday, April 30, 2016

The first stone was laid on 7 January 1777 and after 4 years of work, the church was opened in 1781.

Bishop Fray Antonio Alcalde came up with the idea of ​​building a church in the northern part of the city of Guadalajara, which at that time was virtually uninhabited.

The building is Churrigueresque, covered with yellow limestone from the canyon Huentitán.

Back outside and hidden around the corner is this statue depicting The story of Guadalupe begins in December 1531 in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) when the Virgin Mary appeared four times to the Indian peasant Juan Diego.

I am thinking of dedicating a post to the many icons of Guadalupe I have seen on this Mexican trip.

Friday, April 29, 2016

April 2016 - Toronto ON

Saturday was lunch at the Elephant and Castle. My fish tacos looked great but they were too stuffed to be easy to eat and the mahi mahi was chopped up into little pieces.

And then an afternoon production of Kinky Boots. I don't know why it took us so long to see this as it was fantastic. John said it was "almost" the best musical he's seen (nothing can move Phantom of the Opera from his #1 spot).

Kyle Parker, on the left played Lola in the production we saw and he was amazing.

Sunday was a lazy day home with blueberry sour cream pancakes for breakfast.Monday was lunch and a movie. Lunch was at La Carnita, Mexican tacos.

In Cod We Trust (front with red cabbage) on left Beef Cheeks and a pork carnita.

They have cheladas on the menu!! Viva Mexico. 1 spicy with Corona and 1 citrus with Negra Modelo .

It was a freezing cold day for the end of April. We went from winter to spring to summer to winter in a week. How cold was the rest of the week? I brought my winter coat back out and the cherry blossoms updates say they won't bloom until May due to the cold weather.Movie was Criminal, really enjoyed it.

The rest of the week passed in various appointments and administrivia such as taxes and such.

We watched Brooklyn and I prefered the movie to the book, very unusual.Friday we went to the ROM, Royal Ontario Museum to see the Tattoo exhibit. It was very interesting to learn the cultural differences for tattoos. Stay tuned for a post dedicated to the show.

I was at the AGO recently and really loved these Chinese snuff bottles some of them dating back to the 1730s.

They’re all small; almost none are taller than 3 inches. And they’re made of all kinds of materials, from glass to jade, agate, precious stones such as tourmaline, even ruby matrix, amethyst, porcelain.

Chinese snuff bottles were only made in the Qing Dynasty, which started in 1644 and ended in 1911, and contrary to what some people think, they were used only for holding powdered tobacco, usually with some herbs and spices in it, which was inhaled through the nose. They were never used for opium; that’s a totally different thing.

1. Starts with R2. Week's Favorite3. At RestThe first two will be the same, except we’ll work our way through the alphabet. The second can be a favorite image or activity from the week. The third will be different each time.

The term "Red Rocket" was only taken up by the TTC as a marketing slogan in the early to mid 1980s. It was in widespread use throughout the 1970s thanks to John Downing of the Toronto Sun, who applied the nickname during a series of articles attempting to bend the will of the TTC in favour of retaining streetcars. John Downing got the idea for the term from John Bromley during a lunch meeting between the two and Mike Filey. John Bromley originally coined the term on March 30, 1954, to (in his words) "facetiously" describe the slow Gloucester cars operating on the newly opened Yonge line. The term remained in limited use amongst John Bromley's friends during the fifties and the sixties until John used it during the lunch meeting with John Downing, and the idea took off like a (ahem) rocket.

Here is one at going west on Queen at Spadina.

This is one of the new models going north on Spadina at Queen.

We can see the Humber Loop from our condo and spotted this streetcar all dressed up.

TextureWell, that's easy as this week I framed some photos from Mexico and hung some fabric I had bought in San Miguel de Allende. I used a hanger, for now for the fabric until I can find a dowel or something more decorative.

Last week I gave you part 1 of our Irish trip and will continue that trip today.

We'll start with our drive into Galway. Bright fields of rapeseed.

A stop for a photo of Dunguaire Castle this also has a link to Yeats who was mentioned in my last post.

In 1924 Dunguaire was bought and repaired by Oliver St. John Gogarty, the famous surgeon and literary figure. This was the time of the great Celtic revival in Irish literature exemplified by the works of writers such as Synge, Yeats Shaw and O'Casey. It became the venue for meetings of the literary revivalists such as W.B. Yeats, his patron Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw, Edward Martin and J.M. Synge. Yeats in particular believed strongly in the Celtic Bardic Tradition and set about reviving the ancient oral customs incorporating them into his plays and poetry.

In 1954 the castle was acquired by Christobel Lady Amptill who completed the restoration started by Oliver St. John Gogarty. Subsequently the castle became the property of Shannon Development. Today the restored castle gives an insight into the lifestyle of the people who lived from 1520 to modern times.

1991

In 2005 we attended their medieval banquet, which is lovely, small and intimate.

Croagh Patrick (pronounced Croke Patrick) stands at 764m (2,507ft) and is the third highest peak in Mayo. Best known for its association with Saint Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, who is said to have fasted for 40 days at the summit in 441AD, Croagh Patrick has been a pilgrimage destination since pre-Christian times.

We stayed overnight in Westport.

Still in business, The Olde Railway Hotel is a classic coaching inn, on a tree-lined mall overlooking the Carrowbeg River in the town centre. It was built in 1780 as a coaching inn for the guests of Lord Sligo.

Looking across at the Railway Hotel.

Yikes no wonder my niece always says she remembers my big earrings and how about that long dark hair????

Around County Sligo

Tobernalt Holy Well predates the advent of Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century.

More Yeats. Yeats, born in Dublin 151 years ago this year, spent his childhood summers with Sligo relatives and he carried the force of it within him all his life.

A portrait of WB Yeats in 1920 (Getty Images)

Guess I carried huge purses even back then.

He wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree (“I will arise and go now”) in grey-pavemented 1888 London to express a homesick yearning for somewhere that he heard “in the deep heart’s core”.

Driving on.

In Letterkenny we stayed in Gallagher's.It appears to still exist but looks very grand on their website.
In 2007 we rented an apartment from a doctor who worked in Letterkenny.

Before getting to County Donegal we had to cut through County Fermanagh at Enniskillen which takes you into Northern Ireland and in 1991 there were still British soldiers guarding the border.

We were met by a very young soldier who looked at our passports and said he knew someone in Winnipeg, perhaps we knew him LOL.

The town of Bundoran.

The Great Northern Railway Hotel in the background.

My cousin in Dublin through a travel agent friend got us a great deal on this hotel.

The view from our room.

The beach at Malin head the most northerly point of the island of Ireland.

Malin Town

Considered to be the most dramatic of the beautiful Donegal peninsulas. You get a real sense of the power of the sea and the resilience of the land on this wild peninsula.